Both the Athlon X2 4450e and the Athlon X2 4050e are dual-core processors designed to reduce power consumption and offer greater performance per watt.

Monday's release comes on the heels of AMD's early March announcement that the company was shipping the 45-watt, X2 4850E chip.

Dan Olds, an analyst with the Gabriel Consulting Group, called Intel's move to low-power processors a smart one. "First, the low-power parts also mean low-heat output, which means the chips can be put into smaller form factors and that system vendors don't have to spend as much money on case design, cooling fans, and the like," he added. "Also these chips are pretty inexpensive, which also is an inducement for the system vendors to use them in their computers."

The two new processors unveiled Monday are designed for power users who run multiple processor-intensive applications at the same time, AMD noted in a written release.